Early life and career

Born in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York City, New York, Don Heck learned art through correspondence courses as well as at Woodrow Wilson Vocational High School in Jamaica and at Brooklyn Community College. He continued with an impromptu education in 1949 when a college friend recommended him for a job at Harvey Comics, repurposing newspaper comic strip Photostats into comic-book form — including the work of Heck's idol, famed cartoonist Milton Caniff, whose art Heck's would later resemble. One co-worker in the Harvey production department was future comics-art notable Pete Morisi.

Heck left Harvey after a year, and after taking his art samples to comic book companies chosen at random, he landed freelance assignments for Quality Comics, Hillman Comics, and Toby Press. Heck's first known credited work is on the horror comics Weird Terror, Horrific, Terrific, and Danger, and the violent Western series Death Valley, for publisher Comic Media beginning in 1952. Publisher Allen Hardy was a former co-worker at Harvey Comics. For publisher U.S. Pictorial, circa 1955, he drew the one-shot Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion, a TV tie-in comic, possibly a Heinz giveaway, based on the 1955-57 syndicated, live-action kids' show of that name.

Atlas Comics

Through his colleague Pete Morisi, Heck met Stan Lee, editor-in-chief and art director of Timely Comics, and subsequently Atlas Comics, the two forerunners of Marvel Comics. Heck became an Atlas staff artist on September 1, 1954; his first known work for the company was the six-page Korean War story "The Commies Attack!" in Battlefront #29 (March 1955). He as well drew Westerns, crime fiction, horror, and jungle stories. During a 1957 business retrenchment, when Atlas let go of most of its staff and freelancers, Heck worked for 18 months designing model airplanes.

Tales of Suspense #1 (Jan. 1959). Cover art by Don Heck.

Atlas began revamping in late 1958 with the arrival of artist Jack Kirby, a comics legend whose career was also in need of revamping, and who threw himself into the anthological science fiction, supernatural mystery, and giant-monster stories of what would become known as "pre-superhero Marvel." Heck returned alongside other soon-to-be-famous names of Marvel Comics' 1960s emergence as a pop culture phenomenon, making his first splash with the cover of Tales of Suspense #1 (Jan. 1959). one of the very few of that time not drawn by Kirby.

In the years immediately preceding the arrival of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the other popular heroes of Marvel's ascendancy, Heck gave atmospheric rendering to numerous sci-fi jungle/prison-escape stories and other genres, Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish, to name two of the many pre-superhero comics for which he drew; others included Strange Worlds, World of Fantasy, and Journey into Mystery. Many of these stories were reprinted during the 1960s and 1970s. Heck, who was known for drawing beautiful women, also contributed to such Atlas/Marvel romance comics as Love Romances and My Own Romance.

The Silver Age

Iron Man premiered in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) as a collaboration among editor and story-plotter Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, story-artist Heck, and Kirby, who provided the cover pencils and designed the first Iron Man armor. Kirby "designed the costume," Heck recalled, "because he was doing the cover. The covers were always done first. But I created the look of the characters, like Tony Stark and his secretary Pepper Potts." Comics historian and former Kirby assistant Mark Evanier, investigating claims of Kirby's involvement in the creation of both Iron Man and Daredevil, interviewed Kirby and Heck on the subject, years before their deaths, and concluded
"blockquote"that Kirby "definitely did not do full breakdowns as has been erroneously reported about ... the first 'Iron Man'. [In the early 1970s], Jack claimed to have laid out those stories, and I repeated his claim in print — though not before checking with Heck, who said, in effect, 'Oh, yeah. I remember that. Jack did the layouts'. We all later realized he was mistaken. ... Both also believed that Jack had contributed to the plots of those debut appearances — recollections that do not match those of Stan Lee. (Larry Lieber did the script for the first Iron Man story from a plot that Stan gave him.) Also, in both cases, Jack had already drawn the covers of those issues and done some amount of design work. He came up with the initial look of Iron Man's armor ... ""blockquote"
Heck presided over the first appearance of Hawkeye, Marvel's archer supreme, in Tales of Suspense #57 (Sept. 1964), and femme fatale Communist spy and future superheroine and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent the Black Widow in #52 (April 1964).

Splash page, Tales of Suspense #53 (Jan. 1964)

Heck drew the feature through issue #46 (Oct. 1963), after which Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko introduced the familiar red-and-gold Iron Man armor and drew the feature for three issues. Heck returned with #50 — which introduced Iron Man's arch-foe, the Mandarin — and continued through #72 (Dec. 1965).

Later career

Heck inked his own pencils for many years. However, when struggling to adjust to the "Marvel method" of doing comics, and Marvel's explosion of super-hero titles, he was assigned the help of an inker for the first time. He successfully made this adjustment, and went on to be one of the most remembered artists of Marvel's The Avengers in the mid-1960s. Eventually, he returned to inking his own work in Avengers #32-37.

Quotes

Roy Thomas: "Don was unlucky enough, I think, to be a non-superhero artist who, starting in the sixties, had to find his niche in a world dominated by superheroes. Fortunately, as he proved first with Iron Man and then with the Avengers, Don could rise to the occasion because he had real talent and a good grounding in the fundamentals. He amalgamated into his own style certain aspects of Jack Kirby's style, and carved out a place for himself as one of a handful of artists who were of real importance during the very early days of Marvel".

Jerry Ordway: "Don Heck was a truly under-appreciated artist. His Atlas work (pre-Marvel) was terrific, with a clean sharp style, and an ink line that wouldn't quit".

Stan Lee upon hearing of Heck's death: Don Heck was more than a splendid artist. He was a gentleman and a friend — and a joy to work with. Is Don remembered? Only the other day, a fan stopped me at a Comic Con and asked, "Hey, aren't you the guy who used to write Don Heck's Iron Man?

Jack C. Harris on the same occasion: "Back when I was a fan, Don Heck — with Wally Wood's inking — was the reason I began buying The Avengers from Marvel. No matter how many characters crowded a scene, Don's masterful layouts depicted power and excitement every time".

Tony Isabella: "If there were a Marvel Universe version of Mount Rushmore, he would be up there with Stan [Lee], Jack [Kirby], Steve [Ditko], and Dick [Ayers]. Yeah, I know, that's five heads, but comics have always been larger than life".